André Baptiste, Sr.

If Yuri Orlov is the gun of this film, André Baptiste Sr. is the shooter. Defined by Yuri as the "American-educated, self-declared president of Liberia... André's seven-year civil war has been described as 'a relentless campaign of sadistic want and violence.'" I like to consider André as the other side of the immoral coin that is Yuri Orlov. Being Yuri's best customer, he does business quite frequently with André, often witnessing horrendous war crimes he so easily sweeps under the rug (making Yuri just as accountable). While both men try to justify their immorality, Yuri at least acknowledges it and feels some remorse. André on the other hand is a ruthless, dictating murderer who is evil just for the Hell of it. He is absolutely devoid of a conscience or any humanity whatsoever (seemingly). His role in this film is the personification of all dictators who spit in the face of democracy and do whatever they want due to their position of power. In the film, André is shown killing a young boy in his own guard, without warning, for talking to a young girl while transacting with Yuri, as well as assembling a small congregation of boys from about age 8-16 to fight in his wars for him, calling them his "kalashnikov kids"; his "boy brigades". He tries to justify recruiting such small children by stating to Yuri, "We need every man we can get... a bullet from a fourteen-year-old is just as effective as one from a forty-year-old; often more effective." He says to be declared by some as "the lord of war" (a misinterpretation of the phrase 'warlord', hence the title of the film), however, he surmises that perhaps it is Yuri who is the true 'lord of war', which ties in not only the title the theme of the film as well.

André Baptiste, jr.

"If I thought I was scared of André, Sr., I knew I was scared of André, Jr.. Like father, like son; the guava doesn't fall too far from the tree... They say André, Jr. would eat a human heart while it was still beating to give him superhuman strength." These are words Yuri uses to illustrate André Baptiste, Jr., warlord-in-training (or more appropriately, lord-of-war-in-training). He is just as cold-blooded as his father and is always seen at his side. He kills because it's fun and never shows any remorse for having done so. He meets his end tragically when Vitaly blows up a supplies truck during the transaction between Yuri and RUF soldiers in Sierra Leone. André discovers what Vitaly is trying to do and is knocked unconscious by him and left next to the truck. His body is incinerated in the subsequent detonation. André Baptiste, Jr. is an institutionalized human being; the result of having been raised by an inhumane father in an inhumane establishment; the direct product of the duplicate mirror structure of ideology as proposed by Louis Althusser. Had he survived in the movie he would have taken his father's place and most likely would have been a worse oppressor than his father was. Unfortunately, this is the same kind of power structure we see in today's world.